Due to an explosion in media platforms and tracking services, Wired declares that Nielsen is officially “dead.” Unfortunately for the ratings institution, consumers just don’t watch TV like they used to. “Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Roku, iTunes, smartphone, tablet -- none of these platforms or devices are reflected in the Nielsen rating,” Wired writes. Nielsen recently said it would soon begin including Web streaming to TV sets in its ratings. To that, Wired says too little, too late. 

Long a problem for Facebook, the company is reportedly losing the hearts and minds of more and more developers. “The company says it is stepping up efforts to police the network by curbing spam and restricting apps that aren't adding sufficient value to the network,” The Wall Street Journal reports. Yet, “developers say the crackdown is an attempt to stifle applications that compete with Facebook-owned services or part of an effort to get developers to pay for ads on Facebook.” 

Google is reportedly planning to combine its messaging platforms into a single service, which will be named Babble, Geek.com reports. And, not a moment too soon, it notes. “Google’s got a huge communication problem right now, Geek.com writes. “Google Talk, Hangout, Voice, Messenger, Chat for Drive collaboration, and the pseudo Google Talk for G+ all function just a little differently from one another.” 

Presenting new opportunities for mobile marketers, Samsung is challenging Apple’s plan to put little computers on every consumers’ wrist. “We’ve been preparing the watch product for so long,” Lee Young Hee, EVP of Samsung’s mobile business, tells Bloomberg. “We are working very hard to get ready for it.” Lee wouldn’t speak to the would-be watch’s features, but Bloomberg expects it to have all the power and utility of a modern smartphone. 

Disney is developing a mobile app that will live stream ABC programming to cable and satellite subscribers, The New York Times reports. “With the app, ABC … will become the first of the American broadcasters to provide a live Internet stream of national and local programming to people who pay for cable or satellite,” according to The New York Times. So ambitious is the app, NYT suggests that it could “render Hulu passé for some people.” 

Univision Communications just named John Kelly EVP of digital sales, Broadcasting & Cable reports. “Kelly was with NBCUniversal's ad sales team from 2000-2012 -- most recently as executive VP of media sales and marketing for NBC News -- before leaving, following a restructuring of the senior executives in their sales organization,” according to B&C.

Continuing to develop desktop services, Google is reportedly ready to launch a note-taking app named Google Keep. “There's a list of notes, and you can color-code them, save pictures, and make checklists,” Android Police reports, citing the existence of a since-deleted Google app. "You can archive notes, which will send them to a section at the bottom of your list.” However, “Keep does a terrible job of displaying images in list view,” Android Police points out.  

Determined not to be out-innovated, Facebook seems determined to improve its services through broad testing and engineer engagement. “Between hackathons, lock-ins, and constant code pushes, experimentation is core to Facebook’s product development,” TechCrunch reports. Most recently, Facebook launched a beta club offering Android users early access to new features.

Even though Google Glass has yet to officially launch, CNet’s Chris Matyszczyk reports on growing opposition to the potentially intrusive technology. "Stop The Cyborgs,” for instance, is a Web site dedicated to curbing Google’s data-collecting ways, and Google Glass specifically. “They say that it will herald a world in which ‘privacy is impossible and corporate control total,’” Matyszczyk writes.

Desperate for engineering expertise, top Web companies are appealing to the White House and Congress to reform existing immigration rules for such highly-skilled workers. As The Hill’s Hillicon Valley blog reports, the group includes 100 chief executives, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. “The tech heavyweights [say] the need to hire and retain skilled foreign and domestic workers is one of the top economic challenges facing the country.”